Emerging Tech in Emerging Markets

As India’s first-ever Immersive Technology festival wraps up, it highlights how the market for making and consuming technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality goes well beyond Silicon Valley.

Immersion Film Festival and conference took place at the beginning of march a the Nehru Centre in Mumbai, and has been hailed as a massive success.

I spoke to its organizer Eddie Avil, who explained that he put together this first edition of the event mainly as a grassroots effort, overcoming great resistance. After its conclusion, however, he says that both attendees and media are calling this the “Flagship Event for AR/VR in India” and he’s already fielding enquiries for Big brands wanting to partner for the second edition which takes place in 2020.

“My humble desire in building Immersion was and continues to be to nudge India’s AR/VR Industry forward, building a community and driving adoption both for enterprise and consumers,” he says.

The event gathered 45 Speakers from India and around the Globe with Panel Discussions on varied topics such as healthcare, Education, Training, simulation, Industries, Advertising, e-commerce, Travel, Entertainment and Gaming. There were also many demos available for the attending public to try at the Experience Zone, but Avil is ambitious about expanding this for next year’s festival.

“We will have capsules where we will bring Investors & Startups together, themed around education, Bollywood, plus we want to engage directly with Government and trade organisations. He reveals he’s also in advanced discussions with various embassies from countries such as the UK,Canada,Australia,Ireland Israel about mutual exchange programs.